Dominick Prince has lived in Detroit long enough to use his experiences of crime and poverty to fuel his writing, but he’s ready to move on to bigger and better things. Dominick’s thesis advisor, the elitist Parker Farmington, refuses to let Dominick pass his class, thinking the genre of potboilers beneath him. Which means rather than becoming the next literary sensation, Dominick will spend his life asking customers if they’d like fries with that.
So if Farmington won’t pass him willfully, Dominick will make him do it forcefully. And once he has Farmington’s signature, fame and fortune are within Dominick’s grasp. But while Dominick may have a devious and brilliant mind on the page, in reality he’s more Betty White than Walter White. And before he can write ’the plot thickens,’ Dominick’s plan begins to go horribly wrong. Teaming with Farmington’s jilted mistress and her loose-cannon bounty hunter brother, Dominick finds that if even the best laid plans go awry, then his doesn’t have a snowball’s chance in hell. And being a great writer won’t matter much if he’s six feet under.
Praise for Murder Boy
“I found MURDER BOY disturbing in a good way, the best possible way. It’s hilarious, yet incredibly aware of its own twisted reality. Personally, I don’t know of another book like it. Saying something is such-and-such “with heart” is a big meta-joke, but I thought MURDER BOY truly was a black comedy with heart.”
-Laura Lippman, New York Times bestselling author of Lady in the Lake
“Bryon Quertermous has the thing that every writer strives for and many never find: a truly unique voice. His writing is crisp and clean, his storytelling sense is honed, but it’s the voice that holds the magic. The balance of the comedic and the dramatic in his work is a rare treat, reading like a deliciously blood-soaked crime novel rewritten by Christopher Moore. Try the first sentence of MURDER BOY, and then tell me if I’m wrong.”
-Michael Koryta, New York Times bestselling author of If She Wakes
“Bryon Quertermous’s MURDER BOY is chock-full of crackling dialogue, whirlwind pacing and the most sociopaths per capita of any book I’ve read in a long time. (I mean that in a good way.) It’s dark, brutal, and irresistible.”
– Kelly Braffet, author of Save Yourself
“Welcome to the literary rock-tumbler that is Bryon Quertermous’ mind. One part manic and one part meta, MURDER BOY is as much a meditation on love, loss, dashed hopes and second chances as it is a crime-filled, gonzo-pulp fever dream fueled by booze and bodily fluids.”
–The Maine Suspect
“Stream of consciousness narration is nothing new, but Quertermous gives Dominick an almost continual output of insightful, and often times laugh out loud funny, narration that stands apart from the pack.”
–Crimespree Magazine
“Quertermous has created a work which exists simultaneously as both a classic example of the noir thriller and as a unique dark comedic attack against the hypocrisy of academia. This would be no easy feat for a veteran author, but still Bryon Quertermous manages to makes it seem like a leisurely stroll down a dimly lit corridor.”
–BOLO Books
“MURDER BOY is a deliciously dark skewering of crime fiction, academia, ambition and envy.”
–Florida Times-Union
“An all out pulp-crime explosion.”
-Mystery People Blog